Photo: Mayor de Blasio (c.) and Schools Chancellor Carmen Farina (l.) this week announced that the PROSE Program would double in size in time for the 2015-16 school year. Courtesy of Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office.
The de Blasio administration this week announced that 64 more schools—11 in Queens—will become Progressive Redesign Opportunity Schools for Excellence for the 2015-16 academic year, “allowing them to suspend Department and union rules to innovate new ways to reach students.”
Currently in its first year, the PROSE Program includes 62 elementary, middle, and high schools. By the fall, according to the administration, it will be ahead of schedule and nearly two-thirds of the way towards its target of spurring innovation at 200 schools.
The PROSE program, made possible through new contracts with the United Federation of Teachers and Council of School Supervisors and Administrators unions, created an opportunity to experiment at the school level in ways traditionally blocked by Department or union rules, according to Mayor Bill de Blasio and Schools Chancellor Carmen Farina. Schools are using the PROSE program to adopt education practices, such as lengthening school days, combining subjects to deepen students’ understanding of relationships between science and math, and replacing student-teacher ratios with more flexible ones that allow for advanced lecture-style classes that prepare students for college and small-group breakout sessions to help struggling students.
“PROSE schools give teachers and administrators the flexibility they need to make their schools successful,” said City Councilman Daniel Dromm (D-Jackson Heights), chairman of the Education Committee and retired public school teacher. “Teachers and administrators work together to tailor a program for each individual school. Involving the education practitioners in each school is ultimately what has led to success in these PROSE schools. I am very pleased to see this program expand.”
In Queens, these schools will be added to the PROSE roster for the next academic year: Forest Elementary School, Bard High School Early College Queens, Voyages Preparatory High School, Business Technology Early College High School, Goldie Maple Academy, EPIC High School North, Metropolitan Expeditionary Learning School, Institute for Health Professions at Cambria Heights, Benjamin Franklin High School for Finance and Information Technology, The Young Women’s Leadership School of Astoria, and Hunter’s Point Community Middle School.
